'The Yiddish Policemen's Union'
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The novelist Graham Greene famously divided his own work into two distinct categories. He offhandedly called his genre work, novels such as "This Gun for Hire," "entertainments." Books such as "The Power and the Glory," with its darker themes, he believed were more truly literary and therefore worthy of deeper consideration by both the public and critics alike.
By Michael Chabon
HarperCollins ($26.95)
If we review the career of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon in the terms set by Greene, we can see a certain similarity in both writers' abilities to move between richly textured literary efforts and lighter explorations in the field of the thriller and adventure story.
However, Greene notably alternated between the two, ensuring that neither he nor his readers became bored. The same unfortunately cannot be said about the work of Chabon.
"The Yiddish Policemen's Union" marks Chabon's third genre release, following "Summerland" and "The Final Solution."
He won the 2001 Pulitzer for "The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," a sweeping epic of the Jewish experience in America that broadened Chabon's scope as a writer.
The prize also solidified his place in the top rank of American novelists. He was well on his way to becoming the next Philip Roth by way of Vladimir Nabokov.
"Kavalier & Clay" made good on all of the overly effusive critical accolades that Chabon received early in his career. It was only natural to believe that with his next novel, he would continue to mature as an artist.
It's disappointing to find this novel to be little more than a jokey pastiche of the generic noir detective story, rather than the wished-for full-blooded literary novel. What's even more disheartening is witnessing such a talented writer wasting his ability and the reader's patience with such an inept and offensive piece of work.
The novel puts forth the following what-if scenario:
What if, rather than Israel, it was a patch of land in Alaska where Jews settled after World War II? (Insert rim shot here.)
Meyer Landsman, rumpled and cynical, is a stereotypical police detective working the homicide of a junkie chess enthusiast. Landsman smokes too much, drinks too much, has an ex-wife he's still in love with, and shows the all-around air of a character who tried very hard but came nowhere close to making the cut of a Raymond Chandler novel.
All of the characters speak in hardboiled-isms that come off as lazy and uninspired such as, "My Saturday night is like a microwave burrito, Meyer. Very tough to ruin something that starts out so bad to begin with."
Chabon has always indulged in his Nabokovian love of the English language, but here there are patches of prose so purple they would not be out of place in Prince's wardrobe, circa 1984:
"He stands by the window, watching the sky that is like a mosaic pieced together from the broken shards of a thousand mirrors, each one tinted a different shade of gray. The winter sky of southeastern Alaska is a Talmud of gray, an inexhaustible commentary on a Torah of rain clouds and dying light."
What originally may have started as a good-natured gag -- an insider's gentle elbow-to-the-ribs of Jewish culture a la Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint," sustained over 400 pages wherein everyone is referred to as a yid, culminating in the horrifyingly ugly plot to reinstall Jews in the Holy Land by a group that looks suspiciously like Lubavitchers -- is in the end cruel and mean-spirited.
This is something I never thought I would find in a book by Chabon, who is usually such a warm, tender-hearted author.
I cannot imagine what Chabon, or his publisher for that matter, was thinking. Had no one been paying attention to current events?
"The Yiddish Policemen's Union" is set to land in a post-Don Imus America where people are not apt to take the novel lightly. Chabon is setting himself up as a flashpoint for pent-up cultural anger and resentment.
It is unlikely that anyone will be charmed by this latest effort. No one will be laughing after setting aside this new novel, least of all Chabon, who may find himself without a publisher and at the center of a media imbroglio. .....
One can almost write an epitaph from the novel's own words. Chabon's new book is "so ironic that [it is] heartfelt, and [it is] so heartfelt that [it] can only come off as insincere."
First Published May 4, 2007 2:58 pm
